What Happens in Suburbia… (Red Dress Ink Novels)

by Wendy Markham

  He, however, wears it with flair. That’s one of the things I love about him.

  One of the many things.

  He, however, is convinced that I no longer appreciate him.

  “What’s over, Raphael?” I ask with a sigh. “Our friendship?”

  “Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about, Tracey?”

  “No. We’ve actually been talking about whether the ghost of Anna Nicole is haunting you.” Yeah. I’m serious. We have been.

  “Well, that’s not up for discussion. She is. Case closed.” Raphael nibbles at a bacon-wrapped stuffed date.

  “But why would she haunt you? Why wouldn’t she go haunt Howard K. Stern or someone?”

  “I told you,” he says with exaggerated patience, “she didn’t like me.”

  “I thought you only met her once, at that shoot, and I thought she liked you fine until you insulted her.”

  “I did not insult her! She kept tipping over and I made the stylists prop her against the chair.”

  “With rope?”

  “Tracey! Not rope. Light twine.”

  “I see.”

  “But this isn’t about the ghost of Anna Nicole. It’s about you and me and our friendship.”

  Maybe, but it takes me a second to get past the image of a livid and strung-out Anna Nicole lightly twined to a chair.

  “Raphael, how can you say it’s over just because I’m living in the suburbs?”

  “Because that’s how I feel.”

  “But that’s ridiculous.”

  “Tracey! It isn’t ridiculous. Please don’t invalidate my feelings.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “My therapist says I have abandonment issues, Tracey. She’s helping me work through them and she said it’s good for me to verbalize them.”

  “I thought your therapist was a he and that he said you have existential issues.”

  “That’s my psychiatrist, Dr. Dre.”

  “The rapper?”

  “No, the doctor. His name is Andre. Dre for short. But I was talking about my therapist, Soosan. With two o’s.”

  Of course. Leave it to Raphael to entrust his mental well-being to a gangsta shrink and a u-less Soosan.

  “So you basically have two therapists now?”

  He hesitates.

  “Wait, you have more?”

  “Only three, if you count Jamboree.”

  “What—who?—is Jamboree?”

  “She’s the alternative cognitive therapist who’s been helping me work through my adult-onset hippophobia.”

  I probably shouldn’t ask.

  I know I shouldn’t ask.

  I know that if I ask, I’ll only lead him off on some ridiculous Raphael tangent.

  But then, anything is better than discussing the fact that I no longer live or work in Manhattan.

  “Hippophobia, Raphael? What is that—an acute fear of hippos?”

  “No! Tracey, please! Why would I be afraid of hippos?” He rolls his eyes as if he’s never heard of anything so ridiculous in his life.

  “No, I’m sure you wouldn’t. I’m sorry. So what is it?”

  “It’s an acute fear of horses.”

  “Aha.” I nod and take a big long sip of my white sangria, telling myself to drop the subject. Now. Before I alienate him even further.

  I bite into a toast point bearing a fried quail egg with Spanish sausage, which should do wonders for my complexion. I woke up with a volcanic pimple on my chin, which Raphael naturally noticed the second he saw me, and offered his tongue-clucking condolences.

  “So you’re getting cognitive therapy for an acute fear of horses,” I find myself saying.

  “Yes.”

  “But this is Manhattan. I mean, it’s not like you live on a farm in Kentucky.”

  “There are horses in Manhattan, Tracey,” he says indignantly. “There are mounted police, and those carriages in the park, and—”

  “Raphael, are you serious? You’re that afraid of horses?”

  “Yes, and Tracey, please don’t ridicule me for something I can’t help. See? This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Things are different now. I feel like you don’t even know me now that you’ve moved on.”

  “Of course I know you. I’ve known you for years. And I haven’t moved on. I’ve just moved.”

  “People constantly evolve, Tracey. I feel like you don’t know who I’ve become.”

  “Sure, I do.” This week, anyway. You’re being haunted by Anna Nicole and you have three therapists and an acute fear of horses.

  I reach across the table and take his hand, sensing that this isn’t the time to joke around with him. “Raphael, I will always know you and love you and be your friend.”

  “You abandoned me.”

  “I’m here today, aren’t I?”

  “That’s because you felt obligated. You didn’t really want to come.”

  “Sure I did.”

  Okay, not really. I just didn’t want to go to the twins’ talent show.

  But now that I’m here with him, I’m glad. I do love him. I just don’t think he’s being fair. He’s a needy friend, and I’m feeling too drained these days for needy friends.

  “I guarantee that you won’t be coming in and out of the city on weekends for long, Tracey. Next thing I know, you’ll be a stay-at-home mom. That’s what happens with all the women I work with. They just fade away, one by one, into the suburbs.”

  God. He makes it sound so gloomy.

  “Well, I’m not even a mom,” I point out, “so don’t worry about it.”

  “But you will be someday, Tracey. Right?”

  I pause. I know where he’s going with this. What can I say other than, “Right.”

  “That’s what I mean. You’ll settle in up there, have your babies, and I’ll never see you again.”

  Somewhere in the back of my mind, I feel a twinge of bittersweet awareness. He might be right.

  Of course he’s right. Look at Brenda. Look at every friend I’ve ever had who has a baby and moves out of Manhattan.

  Yet I feel compelled to assure Raphael, “That’s not going to happen.”

  “No, and I don’t suppose Lilly Pulitzer will design something in pink and green for the spring line, either.”

  “Huh?”

  “This never would have happened if you didn’t decide to move.”

  I sigh. “Raphael, please try to understand that Jack and I just needed more space.”

  “I gave you plenty of space, Tracey. Didn’t I agree to give up Suds ’n Suds when you got married?”

  Suds ’n Suds. I can’t help but smile. Raphael and I used have a standing weekly date at the Laundromat, where we’d share a six-pack while watching the washers and dryers spin our clothes.

  “That’s not the kind of space we needed, Raphael. I’m talking about literal space. We outgrew our apartment. We wanted a house.”

  “There are houses right here in the city.”

  “Sure, carriage houses that cost twenty million. Speaking of which, don’t you find it ironic that you want to live in a carriage house while you’re suffering from horseophobia?”

  “Hippophobia, and not at all ironic. It’s all connected. That’s what Soosan says. Getting back to you—”

  “Let’s not. Let’s talk about something else.”

  He shrugs. “Fine. What?”

  “Hey, how’s Georgie?” I ask Raphael, settling on his all-time favorite subject aside from dissecting the last episode of Project Runway, which I would ordinarily love to dish about, only I was too busy to get into this season.

  Raphael smiles. “Georgie’s great, Tracey! I love that child. All I want to do is fill him with joy. You’ll see someday when you’re a mother.”

  Uh-oh, dangerous territory again. Mother=stay-at-home-mom=our friendship is over.

  “When is the adoption going to be finalized?” I ask Raphael.
<
br />   “In August, and he wants to go to Walt Disney World to celebrate.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “Oh, it will be. Donatello and I have never been. Why don’t you and Jack come with us?”

  “Maybe we will,” I say, before I remember the budget.

  It doesn’t include an August vacation…or any vacation. Ever again.

  Nor, now that I’m unemployed, does it include anything not directly food-and-shelter related.

  “Can I get you anything else?” the waitress asks me and Raphael.

  He looks at me.

  “I’m stuffed,” I say.

  “What, no flan?”

  I love flan, but I’m pretty sure flan isn’t in the budget, either. God, I hate the budget.

  When the waitress drops the check on the table between us, Raphael makes a grab for it, as usual. I’ve been privy to many a fancy Raphael expense-account lunch and shopping spree over the years. I always offer to pay, but he never lets me.

  Still, I pull out my wallet. “Raphael, I invited you today. Lunch is my treat.”

  “Put that away. I’ve got the corporate card. I’ll write you off as a supermodel.”

  I look dubiously at my reflection in the mirror behind the table, then at the litter of empty plates on it. “You said the last supermodel you lunched with ordered tepid water and a cigarette, and I bet she didn’t have a gi-normous zit on her chin.”

  “And nose,” Raphael observes. “I can see one flaring up there, too.”

  I say, through a clenched and probably soon-to-be pimply jaw, “Seriously, let me get the bill.”

  I’ve never put up much of an argument before. I guess I’m feeling guilty about wanting to check the Metro-North schedule in my bag and jump on the first train back to suburbia. The talent show should be over by now, and it’ll be the first time Jack and I have the house to ourselves since we moved in.

  Grandma and Stefania left this morning. They were both grateful for all the sightseeing expeditions, and kept hugging me when I left them at the airport. In the end, I was actually as sorry to see them go as I was glad. Who knows if I’ll ever see Stefania again?

  Or, for that matter, Grandma?

  Yes, she gets on my nerves.

  Yes, she may be slightly senile.

  But she’s getting older.

  The truth is, my children might never know her. Or they might only remember her as a wizened old lady whose first name they don’t even think to ask.

  I’ve been thinking a lot about Carlotta this week.

  And about me.

  Naturally, Raphael refuses to let me split the restaurant bill, which naturally makes me feel as if I should at least hang out with him awhile longer.

  “What now?” he asks as we emerge onto Broadway on an overcast windy afternoon that feels more like March than June, requiring lamps on indoors and hoods up outdoors.

  “I don’t know…want to walk down to the Strand?” I ask reluctantly.

  “Sure. You’re not in a rush to get home to suburbia?”

  “No,” I say.

  “Don’t you think Jack is lonely without you?”

  “No, he went to a show with his family.”

  “Why didn’t you go with them?”

  “Because I already had a lunch date with you.”

  He looks so pleased I feel guiltier than ever, and determined to cling to what’s left of our friendship.

  “Why are we going to the Strand?” Raphael wants to know as we head downtown.

  “Because you know I love bookstores as much as you love sample sales, and anyway, I need to research a couple of things.”

  Never mind that I’m pretty sure there was no category for books on the budget, and Jack has mentioned more than once that Glenhaven Park has a great little library. The Strand is a great place for bargain books, and I find myself wistfully wondering why I didn’t visit it more often when I lived just a few dozen blocks instead of a few dozen miles away.

  “What are you researching? How to survive Wisteria Lane?” Raphael asks, but there’s a twinkle in his eye. Apparently he’s moved past the resentment phase now that he knows I chose him over Westchester, at least for this afternoon.

  “Maybe I do need some books on wisteria, actually. Not the lane. I’m going to do some landscaping.”

  “Tracey! You’re so Martha! Oooh, you know what you should get? Denim overalls and a big straw hat. Oh, and plastic clogs would be just too, too much.”

  If it were anyone but Raphael, I’d think he was busting my chops, but Raphael takes his fashion very seriously.

  Also, in Raphaelspeak, just too, too much translates into the pièce de résistance.

  “That sounds great,” I say, to humor him, thinking there is no way on God’s green earth that I’d be caught dead in overalls, much less plastic clogs and a straw hat.

  Not that my outfit today is a vast improvement.

  I’m wearing my fat jeans—the unflattering baggy pair I keep around for PMS weekends—which this is—along with a nylon windbreaker because the breeze is chilly, and brown Aerosole loafers because they’re comfortable to walk around in.

  Raphael, who is wearing black boots with toes shaped like needlenose pliers and who isn’t opposed to plastic clogs, deplores Aerosoles.

  In the Strand, we go our separate ways: Raphael off to the parenting section, and I to horticulture.

  There, perusing a row of books on landscaping, I find—of all the people in the entire world—Will McCraw.

  Let’s refresh our memories, shall we?

  Back when I was young and single in the city, my narcissistic ex-boyfriend went off to summer stock and never came back. I mean, he came back to the city, but not to me.

  Not that he was ever really with me to begin with, though I didn’t realize that fact until he was long gone and I had finally learned what a “real” relationship entailed, with Jack.

  I have to admit that Will—who was once dubbed hapless eye candy in a theatrical review (trust me, compared to the rest of what the reviewer said about him, that was a compliment)—is aging pretty well. Clean shaven and unwrinkled, he doesn’t seem to have lost a single strand of his thick dark hair. He’s wearing his ubiquitous black turtleneck and cologne, and has a black blazer slung over his arm.

  Luckily, I see him before he sees me, which means I get to decide whether to greet or run.

  What to do, what to do…

  I stand rooted to the ground watching Will rub his chin and scan the bookshelf.

  The last time we had any contact was on the phone almost three years ago. He had just returned from doing La Cage aux Folles in Transylvania, and was calling to see whether his invitation to my upcoming wedding had been lost in the mail.

  It hadn’t been.

  I’ll admit, I took some pleasure in informing him that he hadn’t made the guest list.

  Will was offended.

  Which made us even at long last, because I was—belatedly—offended by just about everything he’d ever done to me in the course of our nonrelationship.

  When I said goodbye to him that day and hung up the phone, I knew he was out of my life for good. It was a long time coming and I have to say, I haven’t given him a whole lot of thought since.

  Now, watching him, smelling him, I’m stirred by a couple of long-forgotten memories.

  I remember inhaling that same cologne when it lingered in the sweatshirt he’d left at my place after we broke up. I used to bury my face in it and wish he were in it, though if we were in it he’d probably tell me not to slobber on him. He never could abide slobbering.

  I remember that Will always had plants, even back in college. Not pot plants, or lame cactuses, but real, honest-to-goodness plants, the kind that needed special lighting and fertilizer and loving care. I remember feeling jealous that he was capable of loving care when it came to plants, but not humans. At least, not me.

  I remember that I used to love to run my fingertips along that cleft in his chin,
just the way he’s doing now and probably just as lovingly.

  Bottom line: there’s only one person who was ever as crazily obsessive about Will McCraw as I was, and that’s Will McCraw.

  Even now, he’s so wrapped up in himself—or maybe, to be fair, in the plant books as well—that he has yet to notice me. If I slink away now, he’ll never see me here in my fat jeans and Aerosoles.

  Then again, do I really care if he does see me? Am I still, after all these years, concerned about what he thinks of me?

  Of course not.

  That doesn’t mean it’s such a bad idea to dart into the ladies’ room to slick on some lip gloss and run a comb through my wind-disheveled hair.

  Or—since lip gloss and a comb can’t possibly conceal the angry Vesuvius on my chin—it might not be a bad idea to just slink off to children’s books, where I know he’ll never set foot.

  Will hates children.

  I know, sounds like a great guy, doesn’t he?

  What can I say? I was young and overweight and incredibly insecure.

  “Tracey?”

  Too late. His gray eyes have landed on me and widened in surprise.

  “Oh my God! Is that really you?” He grabs me and hugs me before I can answer no, it’s not really me. Which is tempting, since he had to ask in the first place, insinuating that I’ve changed.

  Of course, people do change for the better—and I actually have—but I’m not exactly showcasing my finer physical attributes today.

  Still, Will says, “Wow, you look great!”

  Oh, please. I don’t, and we both know it.

  “So do you, Will!”

  We both know that, too.

  Why can’t he be puffy with graying facial hair and a bad combover?

  “So, it looks like married life agrees with you,” Will tells the pimple on my chin.

  He never was one to overlook a blemish.

  “Yeah, things are good. Jack and I just bought a house in Westchester,” I say, like he cares.

  “No kidding!” He shifts his gaze from my pimple to my pupils at last. Maybe he does care. “So did we!”

  We?

  Whoa!

  Not only did Will—who has always had great disdain for suburbia—buy a house in Westchester, but Will is a We!

  Incredible. Will is married?